Monday, September 9, 2013

Sun/Mon check in--Sept. 8&9 Finish lines!

DISCLAIMER: There may be an uncontrolled number of exclamation points in this post.

I know I wasn't going to check in until after Monday's work, but I couldn't wait.

I finished Mrs. Wiggs! The word count is only about 14k, but I expect it to end about 16k and around 70 pages after the edits. Not bad for a short episode. It will still be standing in line for edits, but I'm thrilled the first draft is done. I hate it when short projects take a freaking long time to write.

Here's the breakdown, then I'm going to share a little helpful advice about the Dragon.

Saturday, I wrote just under 400 words on my Alphasmart while sitting at a restaurant waiting for some friends. That turns out to be around 1100 words per hour. That's about my average on my Alphasmart. I can pretty much bank on it.

Sunday I had to fight tooth and nail to get in front of the computer, then I realized I wasn't going to be able to work well with Football in the background and the phone ringing, even though the Rock said he'd get it. He also cleaned and vowed to let me do nothing but write for the next four years, but it wasn't happening. So I grabbed my headset, my Alphasmart, and my digital recorder, jumped in the car, and drove out by the Great Salt Lake, to a little bend in the road midst acres of farmland, where very very few cars drive by. I like to think of it as my West office.

I opened the top on my car and sat in the cool breeze. I couldn't get comfortable with the Alphasmart and a pillow on my lap, so I pulled out the recorder and went to town. I didn't even walk. I just sat in my car and told the story. OH MY GOSH, I couldn't believe how slowly I was telling it. I was certain I could type faster. I had half sentences, long pauses, and I kept forgetting to say "New Paragraph", etc.

Then I had to pee. An hour or more of good sunlight left and I had to call it quits.

I hurried home and when I transcribed the file, I was shocked. With a file of 1 hour and 37 minutes, I had written 3256. That averages--even stumbling and bumbling around--to be over 2000 words an hour. For me, that's a lot of talking.

I thought I could settle in and do some typing, but after some frustration, which I'll address in a second, I decided I had to get out of the house again. And I still hadn't walked yet. So I took the recorder and headed to the park. It was dark, but the center of the park always has people and has good lighting. The next session wasn't very long because yes, I forgot to pee again before I left the house. This time, I had 47 minutes (which also means 47 minutes of walking!!!!) and I got 1610 words in  (my average was still over 2k per hour!) and I walked 1.12 miles!

This also got me too close to the end to stop. I wrote two sessions on Dr. Wicked for another 2593 and I typed The End at 1:01 am! Perfect timing. And I'm still on schedule with both my day books and night books!

So.
  400 Alphasmart
4866 dictating
2593 Dr. Wicked.
7859 total

Hands down, recording wins. HANDS DOWN. And you know how long it feels like I was writing? 2 1/2 hours--the time I was typing. The time I was recording didn't feel like writing at all, didn't feel like work at all. Subtracting the 400 I wrote on Saturday, I wrote 7459 today. In one day. And it felt like 2 1/2 hours. I had to go back and re-check the math too. I couldn't believe it. I spent 4.7 hours working and got 7859 total. You see how close that is to 8000?!!! Holy crap. (This most productive moon phase will last until the 12th, people! Get crackin'!)

Yeah. Don't hate me.

So this is the help I'd like to share.
After the first session on the recorder, I downloaded it, then thought I'd better do some corrections so the software could see where to improve, etc. I started editing, with my headset, not my hands, and it was like the software stopped speaking English. I was doing everything the way I'd learned before, using the same commands I'd used before, and it was like it didn't hear a word. I was so frustrated I wanted to throw it all out the window.

I called Supe, just to vent, and she suggested I shut the program down then open it again.
I tried it. It worked! It went right back to understanding my commands and editing the way I'd edited before. After coming home with so many new words, I was so glad I didn't have to scrap my Dragon! The only thing I could imagine was that my headset had gotten damaged in my purse, but no. Headset is working fine.

You all tempted to try the Dragon yet?

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